


the blood in your mouth

by alternatedunham



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Root is injured but not egregiously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 13:43:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11510610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alternatedunham/pseuds/alternatedunham
Summary: "Imagine Person A of an OTP is injured badly, and for some reason can’t go the hospital. They somehow get themself over to Person B’s house, where Person B takes care of them."





	the blood in your mouth

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't as polished as I'd like, but I want to post it before I lose my motivation (or muse, if you will). 
> 
> The prompt is from otpprompts.tumblr.com. 
> 
> When this is set? Who knows. Probably mid-season 3, probably before 4x11. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

" _Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine._ "

\- Richard Siken, _Little Beast_

 

Root is bleeding.

It’s three a.m., and Root is standing on Shaw’s threshold, bleeding. Nose broken, one arm gingerly cradling the other, and that’s just what Shaw can see. The concern (which Shaw will vehemently deny, if Root notices and points it out) it sparks in Shaw shocks any bleariness from her system.

"The Machine can only help so much when it comes to hand-to-hand combat." This is Root’s version of an explanation; she uses that baby voice that gets under Shaw’s skin, pouts for extra effect.

Shaw sighs. "Just come in."

Root does, and her expression instantly turns to a gleeful triumph. But before Shaw’s annoyance can rise higher, Root winces, and reaches toward her face. Shaw grabs her wrist.

"Don’t touch it," she instructs. "Sit down, keep your head up, got it?"

"Got it."

Root finds the sofa, chosen and paid for by Harold, and crosses her long legs. She looks like a bird that’s just fallen from a nest, gangly limbs notwithstanding. Shaw goes to the freezer, where she stores ice packs for situations such as Root’s current one.

"So, you got your nose and arm busted. Anything else?"

With her good hand, Root shifts her jacket, reveals a blooming lake of blood to the left of her belly button. "Just a graze."

"Head up," Shaw reprimands sharply, and Root tilts her chin again.

Shaw gathers her First Aid kit along with the ice pack and settles beside Root cautiously, so as not to jostle the unusually delicate hacker. She seems even more vulnerable in the low lamplight.

Shaw takes out the antiseptic wipes, antibiotics, and gauze from the First Aid kit and places it on the coffee table.

“Straighten yourself out and lean back,” Shaw directs, and Root does, raising an eyebrow suggestively, to which Shaw does not respond.

Shaw gently, and Shaw can be quite gentle when she wants, lifts Root’s shirt. Root shudders, and Shaw sees it run through her, the inexplicably intimacy of viewing it, of causing it.

"Cold hands."

"Yeah," says Shaw flatly. "So how’d you manage to get grazed through your shirt?"

She touches the antiseptic wipe to Root’s stomach, and Root hisses, visibly fights the urge to squirm out of Shaw’s reach.

"It rode up," Root manages, devoid of her Root-like mirth, her shoulders tense as a coiled spring, so tight they seem about to snap.

There’s silence as Shaw tends to Root, and Root watches with dark eyes. Some force sits between them, or draws them together, and the moment seems as fragile as it is heavy. Neither of them dare disturb it, dare disturb the universe.

The moment inevitably passes, with the gauze expertly applied to Root’s wound. Shaw reaches for Root’s sleeve next.

"I’m gonna take off your jacket to set your arm."

A brief flash of anxiety crosses Root’s face, but she paints over it with a grin. "Are you flirting with me, Sameen?"

"You know I have a thing for broken bones," Shaw says dryly.

Slowly, Shaw slips Root’s jacket off, and they are just inches apart, the gesture as clinical as it is familiar. It’s not the first time they’ve been so close, but it’s still strange, to look at Root, even with the disheveled hair and sweaty skin and damaged nose, and see someone worth something. Shaw sits the jacket down beside her and leans back. Root is smiling, not in that Cheshire way, but softer, a reciprocation.

They feel the same.

Shaw clears her throat quietly, and shoves the bag of ice into Root’s hand, having temporarily forgotten it in favor of the more pressing gunshot wound. "Here," she says gruffly. "Put that on your nose."

Root holds it on her nose.

Shaw sets the arm with a repurposed towel, a makeshift sling, that she keeps with her First Aid kit. To Root’s credit, she keeps composure, save for one or two quiet pained moans. Shaw never knew how to handle overly-emotional patients as other doctors did.

"You’re fine," says Shaw, but without her usual bite, and it’s soothing. "You’re still gonna have to go to a hospital. I’m sure the Machine can whip you up a fake identity."

"She will," Root says confidently, and in her most affectionate tone adds on, "Thank you, Sam."

"Don’t mention it."

Root shifts closer, and it’s like a gravitational pull, the kiss they share. Uncharacteristically tender of the both of them, mindful of Root’s injuries. Uncharacteristically sweet, a product of the witching hour, of Shaw caring for Root and Root being cared for. But regardless it’s them, how they are, how they fit together, how they coexist.

Shaw breaks the kiss. "Now tell me who the hell did this to you."


End file.
